András Beck

András Beck studied at Hungarian University of Fine Arts. Training under Ö. Fülöp Beck, Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl and Anton Hanak is recorded. The recorded working language is Hungarian. Employment is recorded with Hungarian University of Fine Arts. Distinctions recorded are Kossuth Prize and Munkácsy Prize.

Beck was born in Alsógöd in 1911. His father, artist Ödön Fülöp Beck, trained him from a young age, and he later became a pupil of Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl at the Hungarian Art School for three years, where his talent began to flourish. He left on a study trip to Berlin and then London, where his early works were exhibited.

From the 1930s he became well known for his expressionist sculpture, creating plaquettes of Árpád Tóth, Bartók, Móricz, and Thomas Mann. Between 1945 and 1955 he was hired to sculpt figures for display in various towns and cities. Settling permanently in Paris in 1956, in 1963 his lyrical works were exhibited at the Galerie Lambert. In 1947 Beck was appointed the president of the Trade Union of Hungarian Artists, subsequently leaving for Paris, where in 1948 he became teacher of the Art School. During this tenure there he designed the Leonardo da Vinci Medal. In the late 1960s he created Refugees (1967) and Dance (1969) and his famous Masque de Saint-John Perse bronze mask of writer Saint-John Perse. By the late 1970s he was employed at the Mint in Paris, where a number of his works were exhibited but retired from active sculpture creation in 1980.

Beck died in Paris in 1985 in a car accident.